


life's like an hourglass (glued to the table)

by ArsenicInYourPudding



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: (to an extent), Angst, M/M, Porn With Plot, Smut, angsty!smut, post-s2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-04
Updated: 2014-12-04
Packaged: 2018-02-28 02:34:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2715752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArsenicInYourPudding/pseuds/ArsenicInYourPudding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaldur is returning to Poseidonis in the morning, to stand trial for his crimes. Roy can't do anything about it. </p><p>And that kills him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	life's like an hourglass (glued to the table)

**Author's Note:**

> Originally, I just wrote this as a challenge to myself, and sent it to a friend. She read it, and came back with "I'm a super weird mix of aroused and crying" which, imo, is not bad for my first time writing really angsty smut. 
> 
> So I figure, why the hell not post the damn thing, the world needs more Koy smut and I need the ego boost. Enjoy, folks.

Roy knows how strong he is. He knows the draw weight on his bow raises eyebrows when he goes to get it restrung (he used to do all his maintenance himself, but now he just doesn’t have the time, between Lian and his day job and Kaldur being home, _his_ , again, so he outsources). He knows that he can drag himself and two adult civilians up to the grappling hook hanging off the remains of the Star City Bridge and still manage to run four blocks afterward. He knows what he can bench, what he can sprint, what he can survive in a pinch. He knows he has a rare skill set, and he can save a lot of people most other people couldn’t, and he takes pride in that. Comfort.

  
He also knows that this time, he can’t do anything about anything no matter how strong he is, and that scares him more than he’s willing to say.

  
Two fingers trace an old scar on Kaldur’s chest - it was from a fight with Killer Croc in June of 2011, he knows, even though Kaldur is currently trying to insist that it was from an altercation with Jade (“How _is_ your wife, anyway,” he asks with a quick smile, and Roy laughs at the ridiculous sound of it) in January of 2013. And that should be unsettling, that they both have sustained so much damage, so many bodily injuries over the years, that both of them have functionally lost the ability to tell one scar from another, but Roy’s fingertips skate over the thick, smooth line, memorizing, and all he can feel is fear and longing for something that isn’t even gone yet.

  
Roy breathes in, and has to consciously remind himself to let it out again. “When are you leaving tomorrow,” he asks quietly, and can’t help the acidic burn of resentment that he can’t just pretend he’s referring to Kaldur getting in a cab to the airport or going for a job interview or meeting Artemis or Zatanna or Dinah for breakfast early in the morning, that he can’t pretend everything is going to be okay.

Kaldur exhales, warm and damp against Roy’s forehead. “Not too early,” he answers, carding his fingers through Roy’s too-long-again hair. Briefly, Roy thinks about Kaldur’s hands in it earlier, tugging gently at Roy’s insistence as he licked a wide stripe up the underside of Kaldur’s dick before going back to bobbing down on it so far he almost choked. In Roy’s peripheral vision, the line of Kaldur’s naked hip is exposed by the edge of the sheet, and without thinking Roy’s palm skates over the hard muscle over Kaldur’s ribcage in search of the exposed skin. If Roy had a poetic bone in his body, he might compare Kaldur’s body to a rocky shoreline or something, steady and undulating and _real_ , but he’s the least romantic person he knows and all he can bring himself to think about is his impending loss and how much it’s going to hurt, so much worse than the last time.

  
And Roy had always kind of wondered if Kaldur was maybe a little bit psychic, because Kaldur leans in to kiss him like the world outside the tiny apartment has crumbled to ashes and he’s the only thing left in the world for Kaldur to care about. Roy leans back with a strangled little laugh after a second, grief a physical presence in the spaces between his heart and his lungs, expanding and squeezing. “This is fucked up,” he breathes into the space between them.

  
“That you’re in bed with a terrorist, or that you’re upset he’ll be leaving in the morning,” Kaldur asks, and his smile is sad and self-loathing all at once and Roy doesn’t know what he wants to do, punch it or kiss over it, just that he wants to make it go away.

  
“You shouldn’t be, I don’t know, _comforting_ me,” Roy almost spits. “For christ’s sake, Kal, they could _execute_ you. I shouldn’t be more upset than you are about this.”

  
At this, Kaldur softens, losing some of the hard edge he’s turned inward against himself. He kisses Roy again, rolling them over so Roy is on his back and Kaldur’s half-leaning over him. His forehead rests against Roy’s, and he takes a few deep breaths. “I am not upset,” he says, and Roy’s about to snap something into the pause about how _that’s the problem, dingus_ , when Kaldur continues. “I am _worried_ , which is not the same thing, but I am not upset.”

  
“Why not,” Roy mutters, trying to cling to the stubborn resentment of Kaldur’s calm. It’s old and familiar, something he’s carried in one form or another since they met, back when saving someone from a burning building was entirely about the adrenaline rush and every hero was smart and strong enough to live to fight another day. “I’m freaking out, and it’s not even me on the chopping block.”

  
Kaldur smiles a little bit, looking down at Roy like he’s tracing the lines of his face and committing them to memory. They’re both storing up this moment, he realizes, and Roy’s a little anxious in the back of his heart about getting this right, giving Kaldur the send-off he deserves, in case he doesn’t actually come back to this apartment and this bed and this is what he takes to his final moments. “I’ve never cared,” Kaldur says, slowly, like he’s planning his words one at a time, lining them up and making sure they look right in sequence before he lets them loose, “about dying. It just isn’t a thing I worry about. And right now, even with the possibility that Atlantis will judge me guilty, that’s okay. Because,” and Kaldur pauses, breathes, and presses his lips to Roy’s before going on, “the people I love are safe. And that’s a... A great comfort to me. Whatever happens, I could make sure of that. That’s all I’ve ever cared about.”

  
Roy almost breaks right then, because _goddamnit Kaldur_ , it’s such a noble sentiment and Roy can’t, will _never_ , live up to it. “Well fuck you,” he mutters, and takes a deep breath because he sounds like he’s about to cry and that’s humiliating, “because I can’t say the same.”

  
Kaldur doesn’t say anything, and Roy takes the opportunity to push him back and flip over him, straddling Kaldur’s hips. He’s never been good at _tender_ or _heartfelt_ , but he’s frustrated and angry and grieving and that all amounts to energy he can channel into sex, and that’s what tonight’s about, isn’t it? Giving Kaldur one last good send off?

  
He ducks and kisses along Kaldur’s gills, elbows braced on either side of his broad shoulders. His tongue darts out to lick along the edge of one of the flaps and Kaldur shivers underneath him, his fingers gentle and a little hesitant as his hands slide down Roy’s sides to his hips. Roy cycles through everything he knows Kaldur likes - five years of a sexual history, give or take, every cocky “you like that, huh” and slightly embarrassed “you have no idea how hot that is” ever passed between them, and Roy flicks through option after option in his brain as he works at Kaldur’s gills, considering and discarding as he tries to plan his attack.

  
Kaldur’s thumbs press into the inner curves of Roy’s hips, simultaneously pulling him back and pushing him more firmly onto Kaldur’s lap. Somehow a corner of the bedsheet got pulled between them, and the worn cotton is an interesting sensation against the underside of Roy’s dick, interesting and arousing enough to make him half-hard just by sliding more squarely into the cradle of Kaldur’s hips. “You good for one more,” he asks, instead of addressing the serious, kind of regretful way Kaldur’s looking at him.

  
An amused smile lights Kaldur’s face from where he’s looking up at Roy. “I could be persuaded,” he chuckles, his hands hooking around the sides of Roy’s ribcage to pull him down again.

  
Roy is extra careful to take his time, licking slow, sensual kisses into Kaldur’s mouth. Part of him remembers years of what he’d taken to calling “medic sex” early on (and it had stuck, much to Kaldur’s chagrin), the anxious, frantic bouts that started with one of them all but ripping weapons and gear and protective uniforms off the second they got somewhere private to “check for injuries”, and ended breathless and naked and exhausted, both from fight and fucking, with one of them running hands over the other and asking, demanding, _don’t fucking do that again, please quit cutting it that close please_ , knowing that neither of them would listen in the morning. It was something hated and reluctantly enjoyed in equal measure on either side, the rush of panic and leftover adrenaline and endorphins funnelling into orgasm, and the trembling, quiet peace that followed.

  
He makes sure this is nothing like medic sex, the exact opposite of the frantic, borderline terrified pace they set for each other, pushing and demanding _more, faster, deeper,_ with Roy pinning Kaldur tight against a wall or Kaldur settled firmly and heavily on top of Roy. He remembers first learning how to shoot a bow - each movement was intentional, in slow motion until he learned how to do it right - and he breathes in around Kaldur’s lips and reaches for that same control. He wants this to _last_ , damnit, he wants every second to be a memory all by itself because he always went too fast when he should’ve slowed the fuck down and froze in his tracks when he should’ve been sprinting forward and now he has to make up for all that lost time in one night.

  
Kaldur arches up underneath him, and one hand leaves his ribcage to pull the sheet out from between them. The sudden rush of fabric against his dick sends a shiver down Roy’s spine, and suddenly Kaldur’s right there between his legs, and Roy shifts a little lower in Kaldur’s lap so he can reach down in between them.

  
Roy lowers his head to the opposite side of Kaldur’s neck from the one he’d been kissing earlier, and starts licking and sucking at the sensitive skin around the gills as his fingers wrap around Kaldur with a firm, gentle pressure and his thumb strokes from almost to the base all the way to the head with one smooth swipe. Next to Roy’s ear, Kaldur groans, quiet and throaty, and his hands come up between them to cup the corners of Roy’s jaw, gently moving him away from his gills.

  
Kaldur kisses him briefly and when he lets his head fall back, his pupils are wide with want and he runs his thumbs over the sides of Roy’s face before asking, “Do you want me to fuck you this time?”

  
“Do you want to,” Roy asks instead, because this isn’t about him, even if the answer is _yes_ , of course he wants Kaldur inside him one last time, don't be dumb.

  
And if Roy were looking for it, which he usually isn’t, he’d see something sad and aching on Kaldur’s face for a flicker of a second, in the set of his mouth just before he kisses Roy again and maneuvers underneath him to reach a box of condoms discarded by the corner of the bed. Roy takes one from the box Kaldur pulls over and tears it open, looking around for the bottle of lube they had only a couple hours before. “I think you kicked it off the bed,” Kaldur supplies helpfully, and Roy huffs a small laugh before crawling off Kaldur’s lap to hang off the side of the mattress.

  
The bottle is just under the bed, of course, and Roy has to stretch from where he’s draped half over Kaldur’s legs to get it. He sets one hand against the corner of the bed and pushes himself up, briefly reminded of the yoga push-ups Dinah always did when they warmed up together. Kaldur is staring, when Roy rolls over to his original place, like a homeless man with a five course meal set out in front of him and he doesn’t know where to even start.

  
Roy flips the cap open like he’s intending to prepare himself, and Kaldur takes it from him. “Let me,” he says, and pulls Roy up higher by his hips before coating his fingers and reaching around behind him.

  
Kaldur’s hands have always been cool - occasionally outright chilly - and there was a time early on when Kaldur would apologize, shy and a little embarrassed, until Roy had been forced to admit that the sensation was actually sort of a turn-on. Now is no different, with three of Kaldur’s slick fingers buried to the second knuckle inside him, and Roy takes a second to clench around his fingers, feeling the webbing stretching away from his ring finger brush up against his ass. Kaldur exhales, just a little uneven, and slides his fingers out again when Roy relaxes.

  
“You good,” Roy asks, moving back a little, lower in Kaldur’s lap.

  
Kaldur’s fingers move over a sprawling, undulating burn scar on Roy’s stomach, leaving a thin smear of lube in their wake, and moves his hands to Roy’s hips again as if to answer.

  
Roy arches up, positions himself, and inches down onto Kaldur’s dick. It’s, mostly on accident, the exact right angle, and Roy lets his head fall back a little and groans as he sinks lower, as low as he can comfortably get, and pauses, thighs trembling from desire and exertion. “Good,” he asks, his voice rough, his hands splayed flat on Kaldur’s abs.

  
“ _Please_ ,” Kaldur exhales, fingertips tightening around the upper curve of Roy’s hips, and Roy breathes a short, pleased huff of a laugh and rocks up again.

  
Kaldur only lets Roy get away with the glacial pace he’s intent on keeping as long as possible for a few strokes, before he starts bucking up into Roy, gradually faster and less rhythmic. It’s an odd role reversal, Roy’s enthusiastic abandon transplanted in place of Kaldur’s firm, steady resolve and vice versa, and for some reason, feels oddly right under the circumstances. Kaldur groans as Roy wrenches down onto him and stays there for a second, clenched tight around his dick, before rocking back up again.

  
The pads of Kaldur’s fingers lock, uncomfortable and sure to bruise for just a second, around Roy’s hips as a low moan disappears in a rush of gasping breath. Kaldur’s abs go tight under Roy’s hands for a second and his face screws up. Roy rocks up and wrenches down again with a firm, steady slowness, and Kaldur comes, groaning.

  
One of Kaldur’s hands unlatches from Roy’s hip and curls around his dick, and in a couple quick strokes, Roy is coming on Kaldur’s stomach, his thighs shaking as he rolls up and off of Kaldur’s dick. Kaldur leans over the side of the bed to dispose of the condom as Roy flops back to the bed, feeling strangely, not unpleasantly hollow without the nervous, frustrated energy that had been expended.

  
Kaldur rolls back over to him, with the towel Roy had grabbed earlier that’s only half covered with spunk from the last time, and wipes the worst of it away from both of them. “Feel better,” he asks off-hand, and Roy almost splutters and sits up. Kaldur smiles wryly and leans over to kiss Roy before he can say anything stupid. “I was kidding. Mostly.”

  
Roy groans a little and settles for draping himself over Kaldur’s chest, lips pressed to a small through-and-through bullet scar on Kaldur’s shoulder. “How much do you think Zatanna would charge for some kind of like, temporal distortion charm?”

  
“I am not sure she is capable of such a thing, or would agree,” Kaldur says thoughtfully, stroking up and down Roy’s spine with the tips of his fingers. “But it’s a nice thought.”

  
Roy closes his eyes, the surge of premature grief sweeping through the empty space inside him, and prays to anyone who will listen that this isn’t the memory of him Kaldur takes to his grave.


End file.
